Seeds
Quilt
Haven
Jayden’s Story
Jayden was already waiting in the hallway when I arrived.
He wasn’t pacing. He wasn’t yelling. He was folded into himself, hoodie pulled low, hands clenched inside his sleeves. One of the EAs had walked him out of class after he threw a pencil and muttered something under his breath that the teacher couldn’t quite make out—but assumed was rude.
It was 9:30 a.m.—an unusual time for Jayden to unravel, but something was clearly off.
I didn’t say anything at first. Just crouched down, leaned against the wall beside him. Eventually, without looking up, he said, “She thinks I’m trying to be a jerk. I’m not. I just—I couldn’t listen anymore.”
That was it. No drama. Just the truth of a dysregulated nervous system trying to hold it together in a world that kept asking him to perform when what he really needed was a pause.
Jayden didn’t need a lecture. He needed space to come back to himself. He needed someone who saw him—not just the behaviour. He needed soft eyes.
The Gift of Soft Eyes
I first heard the term soft eyes years ago in the Northwest Territories. I was leading a training session on play- and culture-based learning for kindergarten educators. We were talking about how children show us not just who they are, but how they are—sometimes through play, sometimes through stillness, sometimes through behaviours that leave us wondering what’s really going on beneath the surface.
After one session, an Elder approached me. We’d been talking about a young boy who often struggled to settle, who tested limits and pushed people away before they could get too close. The Elder nodded gently and said, “In our community, we call it seeing with soft eyes.”
She wasn’t talking about a strategy or a technique. She was naming a way of being—a way of seeing children not just for what they do, but for who they are beneath the behaviour. It’s a knowing. A remembering. These are just children. And there is always more to understand.
Soft Eyes & Self-Reg
That phrase stayed with me. In Self-Reg, it’s become central to how we work with children—and with ourselves. Because soft eyes aren’t something we force. They come naturally as we learn to recognize stress behaviour, as we deepen our understanding of the five domains of stress, and as we attune to what a child’s nervous system is telling us.
This isn’t just a shift in perspective. It’s something deeper. As Stuart Shanker says:
“See a child differently, see a different child.”
That’s more than an aspect shift in perspective. It is not that we think differently, we feel differently—and their nervous systems pick up the shift in us. The brain-body defences start to go down.
Soft eyes aren’t about lowering expectations. They’re not about letting things slide. They’re about meeting children with curiosity instead of conclusions. They’re about noticing what isn’t obvious, listening without pushing, staying open to the story underneath the surface.
We Make Space
Many educators, especially EAs, do this naturally. You read the energy in a room before you hear the noise. You spot the flicker of anxiety before the storm. You respond to the quiet collapse just as attentively as you would to a loud outburst. You see the human being behind the behaviour.
Soft eyes don’t mean soft expectations. They mean we hold the bar with love. We make space for safety and connection. We believe in the possibility of growth, even when regulation feels out of reach.
And most of all, we remember: this is a child. There is always more to see. Always more to understand. And when we shift how we see them—they feel it. And everything begins to change.
Always More to Understand
Consider joining us this summer for our latest Self-Reg in Early Childhood Development Certificate Program for those working with children in the early years, or the Self-Reg and Leadership in Schools Certificate Program for our children in our Elementary and High School years. These online, facilitated programs will enable you to harness your Soft Eyes for yourself, your colleagues and the children in your care.